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The one-reel drama, like this picturesque offering from the Hepworth studio, was about to go out of fashion in 1910. That year, the Danish studios began to offer sensational much longer dramas and in the following year the Italian companies would follow suit with expensively produced 'feature' films based on classical tales. The British producers, however, didn't produce one of the longer films until later so that this short film was still the norm.
This slight romance was shot at the famous beauty spot of Lulworth Cove in Dorset and the location is the main attraction. Otherwise it is reasonably well directed by Lewin Fitzhamon, the Hepworth Company's main director at this time. The acting is still in the gestural style and some shots, such as those on the rocks are overlong although with the actual roughness of sea this maybe excusable. A few feet of the actual rescue by our feisty heroine (Alma Taylor, a coming star of the silent British cinema, here in one of her earliest roles) are missing, but thankfully the happy ending is intact.
Bryony Dixon
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Complete surviving film (8:46)
